The present disclosure relates generally to the operation of a central plant for serving building thermal energy loads. The present disclosure relates more particularly to systems and methods for distributing building thermal energy loads across a plurality of subplants configured to serve the building thermal energy loads. The present disclosure relates more particularly still to systems and methods for estimating hourly heating and cooling loads for a building to facilitate operation of a central plant.
A central plant may include various types of equipment configured to serve the thermal energy loads of a building or campus (i.e., a system of buildings). For example, a central plant may include heaters, chillers, heat recovery chillers, cooling towers, or other types of equipment configured to provide heating or cooling for the building. A central plant may consume resources from a utility (e.g., electricity, water, natural gas, etc.) to heat or cool a working fluid (e.g., water, glycol, etc.) that is circulated to the building or stored for later use to provide heating or cooling for the building.
Modern energy conservation measures (ECM) include optimizing the dispatch of a central energy facility (CEF) to use equipment at optimal times of the day when efficiencies are higher, combined with adding thermal energy storage to reduce the peak energy demand during the day. In order to verify the effectiveness of an ECM, a baseline model must be created to find the initial cost of running the CEF. This cost is then compared to the cost of an optimized plant with new equipment added, and the capital savings is the difference between these numbers. Performance contracts rely on the ability to accurately create the baseline model, as well as the projected savings. The resolution of the optimized dispatch schedule is dependent on the resolution of the data input to a optimization tool; however, many facilities do not collect data at hourly intervals. Instead, some facilities collect data at daily and monthly intervals.